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'Many emotionallyaittached e from SENIORS on page Ai what are we spending it on?" Langlois asked .~Bruce Street building, regardless of its future the crowd. "Ites great you want the library to, E V0 use. The Pine Street building, which current- stay, but what type of library do you want? If a ly houses the librarys administration office library services are offered, then what does «M would cost between $160,000 and $240,000 that look like?" Sin renovatioris, and as Langlois pointed out, When the new arts centre opens in spring E there is no allocation in the TownWs future 2011, the main libraty housed in a 16,000 2 capital budget for this." square-foot space, is to move to a new, È Maintenance and repair costs for the two 30,000 square-foot building, which ix about 'm buildings over the next five years is estimat- 1.5 km from the current library. z ed at $580,000. Beyond that time, he said "Certainly keeping alI 16,000 square-feet Sabout $65,000 should be budgeted each year (at Bruce Street) would be a significant chaI- Ito maintain the buildings. lenge anidea bit over the top," said Langlois. "If you onîy had X amount (of money), One of the options suggested was keeping to Iibrary, meeting hears a 6,000 square-foot branch library at the cur- rent location with reduced hours and servic- es. Another option was a smalîer reading roorn or book nook operated by a third party Since aIl the material and equipment at the Bruce Street library ix moving to the new îibrary it would cost about $1.35 million to, outfit a branch library and $605,000 a year to operate, on top of the renovation costs. Langlois said the book nook option would cost the Town a minimal amount to, operate. Other options explored incîuded using the building for youth services, seniors' serv- ices, social services or child care. Jeff Bergsrna, representing the Milton Christian Sehool, said the school was inter- ested in the Bruce Street building to, operate a day care. He 5aid the sehool would be wiîling to, consider also operating a book nook or nurs- ery school frorn the building. "We want to integrate seniors into our prograrns so they can interact with students. They both have sorne wisdorn to share," he said, eliciting chuckles frorn the audience. A rcpresentative frorn Our Kids Nctwork spoke to, the audience about a need for space for youth in Milton. "Not only ix the senior population grow- ing, the child population is boorning. A lot of kids in Milton are not athletes. A lot of kids are not into the arts. So they need a space where they can corne interact with the new youth that corne into Milton," said Vanessa Box-joncs. However, the response from the audience was pretty well unanimous - they want the library to stay An audience member said the consultants were eager to talk about financials, but no:t about the emotional attachment toward the library "If you lost that facility in the centre of town, the town loses something as well." During his presentation, Langlois acknowledged the residents of 'old' Milton are feeling left behind. Ward 2 Councillor Greg Nelson agreed. He said he would like to see a smaîler branch library operate from the Bruce Street location, adding the numbers presented at the meeting were the "worst case scenaio." "As far as hard numbers are concernied, they still need to, be crunched by finance and comrnunity services and the library board." The rnajority of those in attendance seemed to approve of the creation of a branch library. "We don't need a full-service library. We don't need an enormous bank of computers," said one woman. "Wvhat we need is our books and a place to, go and talk to, other peo- pIc tnterested in booký. We just nced our lihrary downtown." The Town ix soliciting ideas from resi- dents on the future use of 45 Bruce St. and 407 Pine St. Ideas can be ernailed until January 30. Ernailjennifer Reynolds, director of cornrunity services, at jennifer.reynolds@rnmilton.ca. Christina Commisso (an be reached at ccommissoCamiltoncanadianchampion.com. ULTIMATE DRIVERS® "'7«a«ù S4Jen*ffl4 de 7u*duw' DRI VING IS A PRIVILEGE, LET US HELP YOUR EARN IT rNEW 4-DAY CONDENSED SAVE ETHE DEC. 18-21 LH ST J Six Programs to choose from: Mînimizes Road Test Tîme and Qualifies for Maximum Insurance Discount Minimizes Road lest lime, Qualifies for Maximum Insurance Discount and leaches 'lau Emergency Skills for Reinstating Driver's License Prepares you for G2 or G License ~~v~ss ~ -Helps Revieming your Drîvîng Habits for lest lyerms UPrdç for 1 les War ____ cie eo heTs 905-8517 500 ChiIds Drive, Milton (Milton Seniors Centre) *1 T "1